9 China-slamming campaign ads

Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra stirred up controversy last week with his Super Bowl ad depicting an Asian actress speaking broken English. “Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good,” the woman says in the spot as she rides a bike through what is supposed to be a rice paddy in China.

But the Michigan Republican’s not the first candidate to push an over-the-top ad bashing China — here’s POLITICO’s top 9 most memorable:

West Virginia Republican Spike Maynard attacked Rep. Nick Rahall with an ad accusing the Democrat of creating jobs in China — all set to stereotypical Chinese music. Maynard lost the 2010 election.

“It’s on our jeans, even children’s toys — made in China,” the ad says.

“Rahall’s vote helped foreign companies create Chinese jobs making windmills. With skyrocketing unemployment, only a politician who’s been in Washington for 34 years would vote to help foreign companies making Chinese windmills.”

Former Rep. Zack Space not only lost his seat in the 2010 election, but the Ohio Democrat also debuted one of the most over-the-top China ads of the cycle. In the spot, he claims his Republican opponent, now Rep. Bob Gibbs, sent Ohio jobs to — you guessed it — China.

“As they say in China, ‘xie xie Mr. Gibbs!’” the narrator says as a Chinese dragon dances across the screen.

During the 2011 special election to fill the House seat vacated by new Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Republican Mark Amodei aired an ad featuring Chinese soldiers marching on the U.S. Capitol. Amodei won.

“As their debt grew, our fortune grew,” a Chinese news anchor says in heavily accented English as patriotic-sounding Chinese music swells. “And that is how our great empire rose again.”

With a not-so-subtle gong kicking off the ad against Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), now Republican senator from Pennsylvania, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee hit the candidate for saying in 2008 that “It’s great that China is modernizing and growing.”

At the end of the 2010 spot, a fortune cookie cracks open. Inside, the piece of paper features a sad face with the words, “Pat Toomey. He’s not for you.”